Hewlett-Packard announced today that it would expand its operations in China through new investments in cloud computing and research and development.
HP announced the opening of ‘Cloud Executive Briefing Centre’ in Tainjin, and revealed that a new research and development centre focused on enterprise servers, storage and networking will open in Beijing by the end of the year. Additional manufacturing facilities and new group headquarters were also announced, to be located in Shanghai.
The news was announced after HP’s CEO Léo Apotheker andother senior executives travelled to China to meet with customers this week.
At a Beijing press conference, Apotheker said that HP was committed to powering the "next wave" of Chinese innovation. "China’s vibrant economy, explosive growth in social and mobile connectivity, and strong commitment to innovation present tremendous opportunities for HP," Apotheker said.
A recent Gartner survey found that Chinese CIOs are more likely to spend their IT budgets on cloud computing than their European and North American counterparts. The survey found that 55 percent of respondents in China plan to spend more than 10 percent of their IT budgets on cloud computing by 2013. The same report also found more than half of Asian CIOs expected their budgets to increase in 2011, compared to 39% of CIOs worldwide.
